If you want to see the consequences of ideas, write a story. If you want to see the consequences of belief, write a story in which somebody is acting on the ideas or beliefs that she has.
Some people might go to the gym and swim laps, but I write songs. Every single day, I write something new and record it.
It means that no matter what you write, be it a biography, an autobiography, a detective novel, or a conversation on the street, it all becomes fiction as soon as you write it down.
I have idea files of books that I want to write one of these days, stories I want to write one of these days, but I'll probably never get to them.
Keeping a habit, in the smallest way, protects and strengthens it. I write every day, even if it's just a sentence, to keep my habit of daily writing strong.
If you were to say to me that I couldn't paint, I would write. If I couldn't write, I would be a set designer. As long as I'm creating something, I'm happy.
I know that by what I write cannot change the wrong world, but I can change the wrong attitude of the world toward me.
I studied writing at NYU. I graduated high school in Nashville and then went to the creative writing program, and in the first year, that's when I wrote 'Kids.'
The real challenge of writing songs isn't just writing a bunch of parts - like a verse, chorus, verse - but making something that flows together, that brings you back.
I have long observed that the act of writing is viewed, by some, as an elite and otherworldly act, all the more so if a person isn't paid for what she writes.
The more I write the more I learn about writing. It is easy to say what looks good or sound good on paper until you experience it for yourself.
I really don't think records should be made in the manner where you sit and write, and when you're finished writing, you start recording. That just seems conventional and old-fashioned to me.
I've been asked this question so many times, do you feel you need to write a book for adults? No, I don't need to write a book for adults.
If I'm feeling something, I have a lot of different ways to express it, you know? I can write an article about it. I can write a screenplay about it. I can act in someone's thing.
The writing is really important in books that affect me. I read for the writing. The story is usually of less interest to me. It's the words that break your heart.
I write down portions, maybe fragments, and perhaps an imperfect view of what I'm hoping to write. Out of that, I keep trying to find exactly what I want.
When I write a song, I tap into the emotion and the feeling and then I use the emotion to write the words. It's the opposite when I act. I use the words and tap into the emotion.
When I write a screenplay - and I think this is true for a lot of people - you direct the movie. That's what writing a screenplay is.
In effect I am not a novelist, but rather a failed essayist who started to write novels because he didn't know how to write essays.
She could only write with him at night and she was wasting her days just sitting around. So he thought I could write with her during the day. And that was Carole King.
That first writing session, what Dan Hill calls a creative blind date, is always a real challenge, and you bring that back to your partner when you return to writing with them.
